The Citation Style of the American Psychological Association (APA)[edit]

Basic Rules[edit]

Authors:

if there are two authors, please connect them with ",&", e.g.: Wegener, D. T., & Petty, R. E.
if there are 3-6 authors: commas separate author names, while the last author name is preceded again by ampersand. E.g.: Kernis, M. H., Cornell, D. P., Sun, C. R., Berry, A., & Harlow, T.
give the last name and initials for all authors of a particular work unless the work has more than six authors. If the work has more than six authors, list the first six authors and then use et al. E.g.: Harris, M., Karper, E., Stacks, G., Hoffman, D., DeNiro, R., Cruz, P., et al.
if there are no authors, move title to the author position, before the date of publication.

--Makarenko 16:04, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Initails handling
Organization as author handling

Hi Vlad, what do you mean by initials handling and Organization as author handling? Are these point missing in the spec.? --Nicole 10:00, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

What are the issues with the initials?--Karin 10:09, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

--Makarenko 11:00, 23 January 2009 (UTC) Should we convert Given.Name to the Initials?
Yes. --Karin 12:19, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I think that making the given names into initials should be applied for alphabetical characters only. Please don't apply initials handling for CJK (Chinese, Korean, Japanese) characters, which don't use initials in their culture.--Masao 02:32, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

According to the citation rules for APA, only initials should be used for author first names. Unfortunately, it is not possible to deviate from this rule. So maybe you could use AJP style for CJK names, since in AJP the whole name appears in citation. --Despoina 12:05, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

It is possible technically to distinguish between CJK and non-CJK UTF symbols on the level of the initials generation. It means that it is possible to omit initials generation for CJK. --Makarenko 16:45, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Editors:

if the book has creator of type editor, use the abbreviation (Ed.) or (Eds.) after the last editor's name. Please use (Ed.) for one editor and (Eds.) for more than one.
if there are no editors, move title to the author position, before the date of publication.

Titles:

Capitalize all major words in journal titles.
When referring to any work that is NOT a journal, such as a book, article, or Web page, capitalize only the first letter of the first word of a title and subtitle, the first word after a colon or a dash in the title, and proper nouns. Do not capitalize the first letter of the second word in a hyphenated compound word.
Italicize titles of longer works such as books and journals.
Do not italicize, underline, or put quotes around the titles of shorter works such as journal articles or essays in edited collections.

Outcome of TelCo, 14.1.09: rule concerning titles will not be implemented. --Nicole 07:50, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

just to clarify: I was ONLY referring to the capitalization, NOT to the italics font of the title of a journal or the title of a book. I think we should capitalize in the data,

but the italics font should be done with the APA export.--Karin 12:25, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Dates:

If date published in print is filled in -> fill in the year

if no date published in print is filled in, look for dates in this order:

date published online --> fill in the year, add at the end of the citation published online with the full date published online, add DOI
date accepted --> render it as: in press
date submitted --> render it as: submitted for publication
date modified --> render it as: in preparation
date created --> render it as: in preparation (Exception: if genre= manuscript --> Date created should be treated like a normal date and be visible)
no dates are available --> render it as: (n.d.).

Which rule has more priority for manuscript: date created or published in print ? --Makarenko 11:09, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Example for date published online Here is an example of an item where the latest date is a published online date

So, I think with this example the issue of journal article vs electronic article is satisfactorily solved for the moment. People who would like to have an online publ. article to be cited as in press, should not populate that date but keep the accepted date as the last one.--Karin 12:52, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

--Makarenko 13:31, 26 January 2009 (UTC):

how to handle the case if item has many external locators, not only doi?

- if DOI is available -> take DOI, do nothing with the other locators

- if no DOI is given, take the 1st given URL, although I do not know which URL people will state, we have to verify during QA workflow.

- precede URL by Retrieved from, e.g. http://qa-pubman.mpdl.mpg.de:8080/pubman/item/escidoc:70777:2 should read: McQueen, J.M., & Sereno, J. (2005). Cleaving automatic processes from strategic biases in phonological priming. Memory & Cognition, 33(7), 1185-1209. Published online. Retrieved from http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/psocpubs/mrc/2005/00000033/00000007/art00005

--Makarenko 15:15, 27 January 2009 (UTC): Unfortunately, the handling of the published-online dates with DOI and other identifiers are not possible due to framework bug: http://www.escidoc.org/jira/browse/DEV-578. Quick solution is implemented, should be revised later after the bug will be fixed.

should the rule be applied to the all genres?

no, probably not. It should definitely applied to Journal articles. I try to add the other genres with the genre specific entries later on this page.

Online publication dates for

Journal article (see above)
Book chapter

same as book

the application place (end of citation) should be same for all genres?

comments: Omissions: These rules have the assumption that material will be published in print at a certain time, which isn't always true - neither for 'normal' publications like journal articles or book (chapters), and certainly not for genres, like talks,teaching etc.

I now ordered the APA Style Guide to Electronic References to know exactly how to cite electronic publications. --Karin 14:56, 17 September 2008 (UTC) How does one state that the publication is an online publication and citing rules for electronic publications apply?

Unfortunately just another question: Is a date published online sufficient if the publication is "published online" (and we do not know if it will be published in press)? If it would be published in press, then date published in print should also be populated. If not -> we have no knowledge. Or it is actually completely different rule? Btw. In both cases extra metadata on e.g. Journal issn / e-issn should be added? ?--Natasa 16:15, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

If you look eg into EndnoteX you will see that they have separate reference types (=genre) for electronic article, electronic book,journal article, book with defifferent metadata fields (eg date accessed),maybe due to citing styles? I will wait until I get the new APA guidelines - to look into this further, maybe it can be 'easily' solved if we just change the rule for citing published online publications.--Karin 18:22, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

if no date is available (or no date is visible according to the rules), "(n.d.)" should appear in the place of date. e.g. Beck, B. J., & Krueger, D.H. (n.d.). A comparison between two things.

Vlad, have you already implemented that rule? --Nicole 10:00, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes --Makarenko 13:31, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Please note that the date should never be the first element of the citation. E.g. if there are no authors or editors, date should come after the title, not before. Also see example for "Book with no author, no editor".

Common rules for punctuation handling. The problem of punctuation handling comes up due to 2 factors:

messy user metadata
- Could you give examples? We know of the problem that sometimes fullstops appear at the end of the title field. We will remove them. Are there other examples of messy user data?--Karin 14:02, 23 February 2009 (UTC)--Karin 14:02, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
  - --Makarenko 14:57, 23 February 2009 (UTC) E.g.:

Many imported items in PubMan have "et al." as one of the authors.
Many items in the Sengbusch collection (http://sengbusch.blogs.mpdl.mpg.de/) have "?" as full-stop of the title, it is not wrong but conflicts with the APA common rule: "The citation title should be finished with ."

citation manager delimiter handling.

In the citation style manager the problem is being resolved on hand of post processing component which eliminates non-normalized punctuations according to the special rules. Punctuations are following symbols: ".,:;!?"

The repeated punctuation should be replaced with the single one
Should the citation style controls the user metadata which is not normalized in sense of punctuation? I.e.: blanks before fullstop, etc.
- Yes! blanks before punctuation should be removed, after the punctuation a blank should appear. --Karin 14:02, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
Cases like "?." in title (cleared)

Journal Article[edit]

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year). Title of article. Title of Periodical, volume (issue number), pages.

e.g.: Scruton, R. (1996). The eclipse of listening. The New Criterion, 15(30), 5-13.

--Makarenko 16:50, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Where to put Editors if available?

To my understanding Editors are not listed with type JOURNAL. I guess you are referring to eg. http://edoc.mpg.de/359277 where the journal article is in a special issue of the journal. The APA citation doesn't mention the special issue editors. In the case of the edoc 359277 the citation should read:
Gullberg, M. & McCafferty, S.G. (2008). Introduction to gesture and SLA: Toward an integrated approach. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 30, 133-146.

Does this answer your question? --Karin 13:05, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Does it mean, that Editors should be omitted for the APA citation style generation for the genre "Journal Article"? --Makarenko 14:09, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, do my knowledge it should! --Karin 16:30, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Books[edit]

Books with creator of type author[edit]

Author, A. A. (Year of publication). Title: Alternative Title. Place of Publication: Name of Publisher.

e.g.: Calfee, R. C., & Valencia, R. R. (1991). APA guide to preparing manuscripts for journal publication. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Books with creator of type editor[edit]

Editor, A. A. (Ed.). (Year of publication). Title: Alternative Title. Place of Publication: Name of Publisher.

e.g.: Duncan, G. J., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (Eds.). (1997). Consequences of growing up poor. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Books with creators of type author and editor[edit]

Author, A. A. (Year of publication). Title: Alternative Title (A.A. Editor, Ed.). Place of Publication: Name of Publisher.

e.g.: Plath, S. (2000). The unabridged journals (K.V. Kukil, Ed.). New York: Anchor.

Books with no author, no editor[edit]

Title of publication.(Year of publication). Place of publication: Name of Publisher.

e.g. Webster's Dictionary. (1933). Washington, DC: Merriam Webster.

Books online publication[edit]

If the last date given, is published online, add the DOI to the reference, if no DOI is given, add the URL with the prefix 'retrieved from'

We should see to it in the workflow that an online publication date has at least one URL.--Karin 16:45, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Book Chapter[edit]

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year of publication). Title of book chapter. In A. Editor & B. Editor (Eds.), Title of book: Alternative Title (Start Page-End Page). Place of Publication: Name of Publisher.

e.g.: O'Neil, J. M., & Egan, J. (1992). Men's and women's gender role journeys: Metaphor for healing, transition, and transformation. In B. R. Wainrib (Ed.), Gender issues across the life cycle (pp. 107-123). New York: Springer.

Books chapter online publication[edit]

If the last date given, is a published online, add the DOI to the reference, if no DOI is given, add the URL with the prefix 'retrieved from'

We should see to it in the workflow that an online publication date has at least one URL.--Karin 16:47, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Proceedings Paper (conference-paper)[edit]

Rule for Conference paper with source=journal[edit]

Author, A. A., & Author, B. (Year of Publication). Title of proceedings paper. Title of proceedings, place of event, volume, startpage-endpage.

--Makarenko 18:29, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Title of proceedings is Journal title or Event title?

e.g.: Smith, J. H., & Thomas, R. (1985). Adults in a learning society. Proceedings of the 24th Annual Meeting of Adult Education Researchers, Manchester, 24, 44-55.

Rule for Conference paper with source=proceedings or book[edit]

Author, A. A., & Author, B. (Year of Publication). Title of proceedings paper. [In] Source Editor (Initial of first name[.] Family Name [(Ed.)], Name of Event: [Vol.] Volume. Title of Proceedings or Book ([pp.] startpage-endpage). Place of Publication: Publisher.

--Makarenko 18:29, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Please, define rule for source editors more precisely (for multiply source editors as well)
Name of Event: - probably typo? Name of Event. ?

Kondic, N., & Büchner, K. (2009). eSciDoc Solutions. In U. Tschida (Ed.), eScience at the MPS. Vol. 38. Collected Papers of the eScience conference (pp. 23-30). München: Wissenschaftsverlag.

Thesis[edit]

Author, A.A. (Year). Title of dissertation. 'Degree Type' thesis, Name of University, Place of University, eg.

Mitterer, Holger (2003). Understanding "gardem bench": Studies in the perception of assimilated word forms. PhD thesis, University of Maastricht, Maastricht.

Dingemanse, Mark (2006). The Body in Yoruba: A Linguistic Study. Master thesis, Leiden University, Leiden.--Karin 12:19, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

online thesis, eg. this thesis is actually an online one, but in edoc the online published date hasn't been populated. So,

http://edoc.mpg.de/297974 should read:

O'Shanessy, C. (2006). Language contact and children's bilingual acquisition: Learning a mixed language and Warlpiri in northern Australia (Doctoral dissertation, University of Sydney, 2006). Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/2123/1303 --Karin 17:01, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Issue[edit]

Editor, A. A., & Editor, B. (Eds.). (Year of Publication). Issue.Title. Source.Title, Source.Volume(Number of issue).

e.g. Barlow, D.H. (Ed.). (1993). The science of classification [Special Issue]. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 100(3).

Question: Shall we always just type "[special issue]" or is it part of the title? --Nicole 15:23, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Always type [Special issue] --Karin 13:49, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Implemented. --Makarenko 14:11, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Suggestions for the citation of other genres[edit]

Journal[edit]

Editor, A. A., & Editor, B. (Eds.). Title of Journal. Place of Publication: Publisher.

e.g. Mann, T., & Beck, F. (Eds.). Journal of Testing Purposes. New York: Springer.

Manuscript[edit]

Author, A. A., & Author, B. (Year of Publication). Title of manuscript. Unpublished manuscript.

e.g. Smith, J. H., & Thomas, R. (1996). Thematic segmentation of psychotherapy transcripts for convergent analyses. Unpublished manuscript.

Proceedings[edit]

Editor, A., & Editor, B. (Eds.). (Year of Publication). Proceedings from: Title of Event. Place of Publication: Name of Publisher.

e.g.: Schnase, J.L., & Cunnius, E.L. (Eds.). (1995). Proceedings from CSCL '95: The First International Conference on Computer Support for Collaborative Learning. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Series[edit]

Editor, A. (Ed.). Title (Vols. start volume-end volume). Place of Publication: Name of Publisher.

e.g.: Wiener, P. (Ed.). Dictionary of the history of ideas (Vols. 1-4). New York: Scribner's.

Talk at event[edit]

please add the date of the event --Karin 13:05, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Author, A. A., & Author, B. (Year of Event). Publication.Title. Event.Title. Event.Place. Start Date of Event - End Date of Event.

e.g. Smith, J. H., & Thomas, R. (1996). Relaxation therapy for elderly insomniacs. Symposium in insomnia. Uppsala, Sweden, 2007-03-29 - 2007-03-31.

Poster[edit]

recommendation for poster: Author (year, month of meeting). Title. Poster presented at Title of Event, Place of Event. example, edoc id:http://edoc.mpg.de/398451 should read:

Van Alphen, P.M., & Van Berkum, J.J.A. (2006, March). About embarking dogs and gracious mice: An ERP study on the integration of embedded words. Poster presented at the Annual CUNY conference on human sentence processing, San Diego, CA.--Karin 13:28, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Implemented --Makarenko 11:46, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Paper[edit]

Treat like journal article.

Report[edit]

Author, A. A., & Author, B. (Year of Publication). Report.Title (Report.Identifier). Place of Publication: Publisher.

e.g. Broadhurst, R. G., & Maller, R. A. (1991). Sex offending and recidivism (Tech. Rep. No. 3). New York: State Institute for Crime Research.

Lecture/ Courseware (Teaching)[edit]

Take same citation as for Talk at Event.

Outcome of telco with Karin. --Nicole 13:29, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Conference Report[edit]

No suggestions yet.

Other[edit]